Portland City Councilor Anna Trevorrow announced Tuesday afternoon that she will not seek reelection.

Anna Trevorrow Photo courtesy Anna Trevorrow

“I thought about it long and hard and it wasn’t an easy decision,” Trevorrow said in a phone interview just after posting a formal statement on her private Facebook page.

“On the one hand, the council has moments that are very fulfilling, and there’s a number of things we’ve accomplished over the years that I’ve been part of,” said Trevorrow.

But she said the demands have become too much.

Trevorrow has served one term on the council and serves as chair of the finance committee. She has proposed a number of progressive policies, including temporarily sanctioning homeless encampments, which ultimately was shot down by the full council, and the decriminalization of psychedelic drugs, which passed.

Trevorrow said she has tried to approach her work on the council through a “lens of equity.” She said she hopes whoever takes her seat will take a similar approach.

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“I feel like that work is still very much in progress,” she said.

Before her time as a city councilor, Trevorrow served for eight years on the school board and for one year on the 2009 charter commission, which established the mayor as an elected role for the first time in decades.

Trevorrow said she is exploring professional and educational opportunities now that her time on the council is ending. She has signed up for a yoga teacher certification this summer.

“It is time to take a break to focus on internal growth. My personal life remains in a very transitional space this would-be re-election season following some major changes in the first quarter of the year,” Trevorrow wrote in her statement.

Several city elections will be held on Nov. 5. In addition to Trevorrow’s District 1 seat, which covers the western half of the peninsula, Victoria Pelletier’s District 2 seat and Roberto Rodriguez’s at-large seat are both on the ballot. Rodriguez has already announced his decision not to seek reelection. Pelletier has not responded to questions about her plans for the upcoming election cycle.

The qualifying period for the election is currently underway. Only one candidate, Robert Todd Morse, has registered to run for Trevorrow’s seat. Four candidates have filed paperwork to run for Pelletier’s: Wes Pelletier, Catherine Nekoie, Atiim Boykin and Nancy English, the only candidate so far who has collected the necessary signatures to officially quality to be on the ballot.

For the at-large seat, six candidates have taken out nomination papers: Jacob Viola, Paul Lewis, state Rep. Grayson Lookner, Jess Falero, Portland school board member Ben Grant, and Brandon Mazer. Mazer is the only one of those candidates who has qualified for the ballot so far. He currently chairs the city’s planning board.

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